Consumer insights are a common term used in digital marketing, but what do these insights actually mean, and how do they help our brands develop a digital strategy? Let’s take a deeper look at how you can use it to strategize your marketing efforts.
So, what exactly is consumer insight? And, why is it so significant?
Customer insight entails understanding trends in consumer behavior and data such as frustrations and needs, which can be used to improve the effectiveness of products and services. Thus, its purpose is to gather a detailed understanding of your customers and their interactions with your brand, such as browsing history, campaign response patterns, demographics, etc.
For brands to be able to invest in highly personalized marketing efforts that improve the customer experience and build loyalty and relationships, it is essential that they conduct a comprehensive consumer insight study, evaluating behaviors, trends, needs, and patterns. A brand’s understanding of customer behavior, and why they make some decisions, will also assist the brand in improving the customer journey, deciding how to market, and ultimately, increasing profitability.
So, how do you gather consumer insights?
Customer Surveys
Customers can be asked to complete surveys as a primary method of collecting data. This can be integrated throughout the customer journey. Those who subscribe to an email list, for example, might receive periodic surveys asking about how they found the product or service. Similarly, you can use a pop-up survey to determine why they unsubscribed from an email list. Brands can obtain direct customer information through surveys with little effort and limitations.
Focus groups
In focus groups, brands have the opportunity to ask a small group of consumers why they like the brand, and what their experience was like during their customer journey. A brand representative may also be able to engage in in-depth conversations with the target group to gather further information. However, to ensure a true representation of consumers, it is recommended to include all types of customers, including new customers, loyal customers, and churned customers.
Behaviour Data
Customers’ interactions and behavior with a brand determine how this data is generated. We can measure metrics such as page views, downloads, email sign-ups, and other important actions taken by our users. A brand’s website or tools for analyzing social media are most commonly used to track these interactions. After the data is analyzed, information and insights will be obtained about the type of communications and marketing strategies that influence customer and those that discourage them from taking action.
What is a brand’s digital strategy if it is not driven by consumer insight?
Streamlined communication with your target audience
Customer consumption of content is increasing as digital marketing evolves. Therefore, you should be able to provide your customers with relevant content that aligns with the brand and motivates them to buy your products. By understanding consumer insights, you will be able to build marketing campaigns that are highly targeted, tailored, and personalized in every customer interaction. You will also know exactly who your customers are, what they want, and how they want to be engaged.
Optimize your customer journey
As a brand, you will be able to optimize the customer journey after you get a definitive understanding of your consumers, their motivation and intention at each touchpoint, what is important to them, and what is not, what is driving them towards and away from your brand. For example – It is possible that your content is good, but the checkout process is not. Therefore, as a brand, you should work on improving and optimizing your checkout experience so that it is user-friendly.
Increasing brand awareness
A brand has to stand out from the crowd if it wants to be successful digitally. It is vital for a brand’s visibility amongst the target audience to be strong. The easiest way to do so efficiently is to consider what type of content customers want to see and engage with and find out what they are looking for. In order to gather consumer insights, it is necessary to gather behavior data, which can provide insight into who the target audience is, what type of content they prefer to consume, and what they are turning away from. It becomes easier to understand what content should be created to increase awareness as a result of these guidelines.
Build a stronger customer persona
In order to strategize the digital strategy of any brand, product, or service, identifying and creating an ideal buyer persona is a must. A brand’s customer persona can be refined using consumer insights in several ways. The customer’s preferences and trends have been seen to evolve with time, increased competition, and the consumption of more content. The ability to gain an understanding of relevant consumer insights through methods such as buying habits, sentiment analysis, and behavioral patterns will allow your brand to gain new insights about your customers as they change, which in turn can be used to continuously improve and revise the customer persona for the brand, which in turn can be used to strategize marketing efforts.
After learning about consumer insights and their role in a brand’s digital space, it is important to perform in-depth research on your customers’ minds and feelings at multiple touchpoints in order to build an effective strategy.
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